Where is Your Mind?
by all-the-angels
Summary: I saw Thorin hug Bilbo in the movie and was immediately all, "GJKNGKEKGW OTP". I think there's something wrong with me. Anyways! Just a short little story I wrote in class.


"Your mind is somewhere else, burglar."

Bilbo blinked and looked up from the slowly burning fire, which had dwindled down the smoldering embers. Thorin sat down next to him, sighing heavily and holding out his hands to be warmed with what was left of their fire. The other dwarves were singing and laughing merrily, taking out their sleeping things and calling out to each other from inside the cave they had found for shelter. Bilbo shook his head and looked up at the sky, slightly obscured by the canopy of leave sabove their heads and a few grey clouds. The stars that were visible were surely the same ones that shone above the Shire, above Bags End. It made him feel slightly lonely, but he found he didn't long for home nearly as much as he used to. He wondered if it was a newly acquired taste for adventure, or if maybe it was the warm company that he had found with the dwarves. He supposed it was a little bit of both of those things, and maybe a new ring that he had deep in his pocket.

"Not at all," Bilbo replied. "It's not as though it's got anyplace else to visit."

"I had thought perhaps it was back in Bags End, the silly Shire you love so much," Thorin said in response. He smirked at Bilbo in the taunting way he always did. "Though it is a bit cramped, isn't it?"

"You're hardly taller than me," Bilbo sniffed in indignation. "You're smaller than a hobbit in comparison to Gandalf."

"Ah, but he's not here at the moment, is he?" Thorin said, rubbing his hands together, his smirk spreading into a grin, though it was none less taunting. "And I am still taller."

"I'll give you that in the end, I suppose," Bilbo said, laughter leaking into his voice as he smiled at his companion. Thorin was, quite contrary to the most popular belief of most elves and dwarves and perhaps a few wizards, rather nice company once you know him well enough. Bilbo felt closer to him than the others in the company, perhaps closer than anyone else he knew.

"My primary curiosity has yet to be satisfied," Thorin said after a moment of silence, glancing down at his friend. "You seem to be considering something, whether it be sadness or thoughtfulness I am unsure, burglar."

"Neither. Maybe both. I'm not sure," Bilbo said. "And don't call me burglar; it's not my name, nor does the title suit me."

"You're an adequite burglar," Thorin argued. "And above adequite for a hobbit."

"Regardless, my name is Bilbo. Not hobbit or burglar."

"Then where is your mind, Bilbo?"

Bilbo looked up at the slightly concealed sky once more. "I'm no burglar. Nor am I an adventurer, for that matter. I'm just a hobbit that has wandered a bit to far away from home. It's as you said, Thorin; I've been lost ever since I left the Shire. I think that I never should have come. We'll be in Mirkwood when the sun sets tomorrow, though we wont be able to see it, and what good with I be there? Everything is silent in Mirkwood, and that seems to be the only thing I have to offer. There is nothing to steal there either."

"Why are you think these things?" Thorin replied. "They are dark and untrue."

Thorin turned to face Bilbo on the log the two of them shared, a hard looking in his eyes that Bilbo could only describe as 'blazing'. Thorin placed his hands on Bilbo's shoulders and said, slowly and seriously, "You saved my life, Bilbo Baggins. You had no need to; it would have been of no consequence to you if I were to die, and yet you saved me. If not for you, this quest would have been at an end without ever having reached the base of Lonely Mountain. You've shown more bravery than half of those in our company, Bilbo. I think you are more worthy than many men; dwarves, wizards, and hobbits alike."

Bilbo, so touched and unsure of how to respond to the heartfelt things Thorin said, could think of nothing more to say than, "And elves too, then, I suppose?"

"At least a hundred of them," Thorin replied, a smile playing at his lips. And then, very unexpectedly, Thorin leaned down and pressed his lips against Bilbo's; it as a chaste, short and rather clumsy kiss, and lasted no longer than five moments, but it still left Bilbo confused and a little breathless. It was short, but it said more than any other action or amount of words that could possibly fit into those few moments. "Thank you for saving my life. I am forever in your debt."

"N... Not at all," Bilbo said in a timid voice, and found himself clumsily returning Thorin's smile as the dwarf rose to join his fellow kin in the cave they were borrowing that night. When Thorin's back was turned, Bilbo subconsciously touched his lips with his fingers, smiling against them before turning his attention back to the dying embers of their fire. "Right, then."

Bilbo was really quite happy that he hadn't gone back home.


End file.
